


Different Things

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied science boyfriends, M/M, everyone loves a good crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce whirled around. “Who are you? You can’t be in here!”</p>
<p>“Oi, I’m sorry, but I need to stop those Cybermen. Trust me, you won’t like it if I don’t.”</p>
<p>Bruce looked suspiciously back at this man speaking in a British accent. “You need to get out of here! This is a research facility!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Things

**Author's Note:**

> Not even close to canon compliant. Presents a different idea for Bruce's accident but follows the Avengers plot reasonably well!

The Doctor scratched his head as he stepped out of the TARDIS. He wasn’t sure why she’d brought him here, to Earth…

He walked out into the larger part of the room and figured out he was in some sort of equipment room. Walking carefully into the next room, he realized he was in a laboratory.

\--  
Bruce Banner looked at the control panels in front of him. “Looks like we’re—oh, shit! Who’s out there?”

There were creatures he didn’t recognize standing out in the test field. They looked like some kids trying to impersonate bad 50s robots. Who the hell would play a prank like this at an Army research facility?

And these robots kept marching towards him and the facility.

A voice yelled from behind him. “Cybermen!”

Bruce whirled around. “Who are you? You can’t be in here!”

“Oi, I’m sorry, but I need to stop those Cybermen. Trust me, you won’t like it if I don’t.”

Bruce looked suspiciously back at this man speaking in a northern British accent. “You need to get out of here! This is a research facility!”

“Would you mind not stopping me from saving your damn world?” 

Bruce huffed at him. “My world? Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

The man’s hands slammed down onto the control panel next to Bruce. “I’m not fooling around. What is it exactly you’re testing? Why are the Cybermen here?”

“It’s—gamma radiation,” Bruce stammered, taken off guard by the proximity of this man.

“Of course!” The tall man smacked his forehead. “Fantastic! Now—what do you got lying around here? What can I use against these Cybermen?”

“Look, Mr—I don’t even know your name—“ Bruce started to say.

“The Doctor!,” the man interjected cheerily.

“Yes, very funny, I’m a doctor too, Dr. Banner—but who are you, doctor...?”

“Oh, just the Doctor! Now, not that I don’t want to chat—but they’re going to blow this place up pretty quickly.”

Bruce blanched. “But I’m testing the effects of gamma radiation—if they blow this place up—“

“Well, that’s why we have to stop them—Dr. Banner, you said?” The Doctor took something from his pocket.

“Is that—a screwdriver?” Bruce peered at the small device with interest.

“Why does everyone remark on the screwdriver bit? It’s sonic, okay!”

“Wait, sonic, you mean it can—?”  
The explosion ate his words as the Cybermen all attacked at once.  
\--  
Bruce woke up in agony. His entire body felt like it had been ripped apart and resewn and oh god his head and—“Where am I?”

“Er…you’re in the TARDIS.” The man from earlier said, leaning against some strange sort of control panel.

“The TARDIS?” How badly had he hit his head? Where was he?

“Stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It’s my…ship.” The Doctor said. Ah yes, The Doctor...whatever that meant.

“Doctor—what, what happened?” Bruce remembered initializing one of his gamma tests.

The Doctor’s face fell. “The Cybermen attacked your research facility. It’s gone now.”

“But the gamma radiation? How are we even alive?” Bruce had done the calculations. No one could survive the blast if something went wrong.

“You should be dead. I…saved your life but at some cost.”

Memories splintered into Bruce’s brain. Rage and anguish poured into his mind. Bruce vomited onto the floor and the Doctor watched him sadly.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?! Is this permanent—oh god, what am I going to do—“

“I hope you never have to understand this Bruce Banner, but have you ever been responsible for the cost of many lives? I have. I wasn’t going to let yours end too, not when I could save you.”

Bruce laughed bitterly, ignoring the pain he saw etched on the Doctor’s face. “So…I’m just a monster now. I can feel him inside me, like I’m two people.”

The Doctor’s hands grabbed his face. “You were meant to live for a reason.” He paused. “You could come travel with me. I’m the last of the Time Lords, you know. There are lots of things I can show you, things you’ve never dreamed of.”

“I’m a danger now, even to someone as strange as you, Doctor. Take me home.”

The Doctor smiled sadly. “Somehow I thought you’d say that.”

\--  
If anyone asked—although Bruce didn’t know if anyone else knew about the Doctor at all—he would have said he never thought about him. Who knew—maybe the radiation wouldn’t have killed him anyway. Maybe he imagined the Doctor as part of the radiation. Surely that much radiation could cause hallucinations, was what he had thought initially. But still…sometimes he hoped and he was a scientist, after all, and his research led him to conclude that the Doctor was very much probably real. Bruce wasn’t sure if he felt hopeful or disheartened by that conclusion.  
When SHIELD brought him in as a consult on gamma radiation, he wondered. If Thor and Loki were aliens, did that mean the Doctor existed? Bruce thought about trying to ask Thor privately but dismissed it. He didn’t need rumors of crazy attached to the already volatile information on him.

And then Tony Stark had to put some pieces together. Someone was going to eventually and Bruce was glad it happened to be Tony.

“You know, that much gamma radiation should’ve killed you.”

Memories of the Doctor flooded Bruce, his insistence that he had saved Bruce for something more.

“So…what you’re saying is…the other guy…saved my life?”  
Bruce wasn’t referring to the Hulk.

\--  
Bruce arrived in Manhattan to a scene of destruction with the Chitauri—Loki’s alien army—flooding in through a portal to other universes.

“Doctor, we could use you,” he muttered under his breath. “You owe me one.” He wasn’t sure what the Doctor could do, only knew that this undeniable proof of aliens made him long for the Doctor even more.

The rest of the battle was a blur, the Hulk taking over for the action and Bruce taking a backseat, only coming forward to save Tony.

\--  
After the defeat of the Chitauri, Bruce took Tony up on his offer to move in to Stark Tower. Bruce thought about the Doctor more than before—but it began to hurt less and less. Every time that Tony smiled, Bruce felt part of his pain right itself.

Bruce wasn’t even sure what time it was when he walked into the lab, humming under his breath. The door closed behind him and he looked up and—  
“Hello, Bruce.” The Doctor was casually standing in the lab, the TARDIS tucked in a corner of the room.

“Doctor.” Bruce tried to breathe. There was no reason for him to hallucinate this time. It had to be real. The Doctor had to be real.

“Seems like you’re doing pretty well for yourself.“ Without me, Bruce’s mind filled in. He could hear it in the Doctor’s voice.

“I am,” Bruce stammered. “Thank you.”

The Doctor smiled wearily. Bruce had never realized just how old the Doctor really was until that smile.  
“Suppose I can’t get you to take pity on an old man and come traveling with me…” Bruce’s heart clenched. Bruce had finally found peace with himself and here was the Doctor stirring everything up.

“I waited for you to save me for a long time, Doctor, but then I figured you weren’t going to come back.” It wasn’t fair for him to say. The Doctor had saved him once. Who expected to get saved twice?

The Doctor shifted. “Time travel is…difficult. It can be inexact. And you haven’t been easy to find.”

“For a long time, I thought you ruined my life. It took several years and Tony to make me realize that you saved it.”

Bruce walked until he was just a few short inches away from the Doctor. “Funny how we’re both doctors, isn’t it? The two of us who have ended up being responsible for so much destruction and anguish.”

“I—the Time War had just happened and I couldn’t let someone else die too. I watched my entire race die. I wasn’t letting the first being I met after that die too.”

Bruce stepped closer and put his hands against the table behind the Doctor. “You saved me…my Doctor.”

The kiss was hesitant but the Doctor quickly responded to it. When they broke apart several moments later, both men were smiling.  
“If you ever change your mind…” the Doctor offered.

“I think Tony needs me around. But…”  
The Doctor smiled broadly but his eyes were full of sadness.  
“If things were different..” Bruce started to say. The Doctor shook his head at him, gave him a quick hug, and walked back to the TARDIS.

As Bruce watched the TARDIS fade from view, something like content settled in his stomach. Maybe they had saved each other, in the end. He just hoped the Doctor could find happiness the way he had.


End file.
